Quotable Comments: ESSENTIALS OF MODERN ECONOMY

"What [he] was getting in his eighteen-hour days was a lesson in the modern economy. He was learning market research. He was learning manufacturing. He was learning how to negotiate with imperious Yankees. He was learning how to plug himself into popular culture in order to understand new fashion trends."

Malcolm Gladwell - "Outliers" p 148.

Quotable comments

"In church meetings, the voices of minorities (women, youth, etc) need to be amplified intentionally."

Nico Simpson (Presenter at the workshop: 'Being Church to a Younger Generation.')

LARGER THAN LIFE

Church leadership can be a precarious ordeal, especially when one's ego grows larger than life (why, there will ALWAYS be someone or two or three in your church who adores you!).

Thanks to Tim Walburg, artist who keeps the site Toonfever running, we have a very adequate illustration of this uniquely churchly phenomenon.

ANOTHER TAKE ON THE EMERGING CHURCH

I recently wrote an article about the Emerging Church Movement for my denomination's official Newspaper, Kerkbode. This is the translated version of that article, somewhat reworked and expanded.

As long ago as 1991, Loren Mead wrote in his book, The Once and Future Church, "A new church is being born around us." Since the publication of this book an explosion in research and experimental ministries occurred all over the world.The church in South Africa was also affected. not only did charismatic churches show breathtaking growth, mainline churches in the country also started to make the leap towards a new church culture. It is here that the Emerging Church Movement (ECM) came forward as effort to explore new alternatives for congregational ministry.

This movement was founded in the previous decades as a series of informal conversations by concerned America pastors. They were concerned that their churches cannot succeed in winning non-churched people for Christ and that their congregational members didn't grow spiritually enough to function as living witnesses of the risen Christ. their common goal was to stay in contact with each other on innovative ways to keep the gospel relevant in a post Christian culture. The advent of the Internet allowed this relational network to grow over large distances and participants of the ECM experimented especially with electronic technology in their efforts to liberated the church from her cul de sac.

The ECM also started to question traditional theological teaching. although it could sound like a rebellion of some sorts, the intention was to test traditional theology in a new way with what the Bible actually said and what this communicated to post-modern people. this conviction was carried by the realisation that it is more important to care for people in their current situation than to force traditional teaching down their throats.

In his book, "Nuwe Drome vir Nuwe Werklikhede (New Dreams for New Realities - only available in Afrikaans), Nelus Niemandt wrote the movement shows some nine common characteristics:

1. One must rather identify with the life of Christ and intentionally focus on the Kingdom of God.
2. Ons must transform this world by destroying the superficial separation between spiritual and worldly matters.
3. Ons must view the church as a faith community and not as an organisation.
4. Ons should intentionally welcome strangers.
5. One must be willing to work wholeheartedly for the Lord without expecting anything in return.
6. One must understand that the church can only function through the participation of every congregation member.
7. One must intentionally make room for more creativity.
8. One must place church leaders in ministry through relational networking rather than through formal structures.
9. One must communicate the centuries-old religious truths of the Bible in a way that make it understandable for today's people.

Research into the ECM show that three categories of emerging church can be distinguished.

The first category is congregations who adapt their worship style, music and outreach programmes to reach the culture around them. an example of such a church is the Mosaic congregation in Johannesburg, formerly a church of the Apostolic Faith Mission denomination. Currently it is an interdenominational church open to anybody from any denominational background. In this category there is also congregations who reach back to old-church forms of worship and one finds a revival in meditative worship services, especially in reformed churches.

A second category of emerging churches is churches who destroy their traditional structures in favour of small group models or alternative leadership models. This grouping is dead set against any form of formal organisation. it is difficult to find examples of such churches, as no overarching structure exists. Obviously it is not only house churches that fit this category. Alternative ministries by traditionally Afrikaans congregations should also be mentioned, such English language services, outreach efforts that use shopping centres as starting point and New Congregational Development, a ministry of the Dutch Reformed Church's general synod.

The third category of emerging churches questions traditional theology.Some ECM thinkers reject the idea that Jesus died in the place of humankind, or that the hell is a physical place. They also critically discuss the stories in the Bible, for example questioning Jesus' miracles, his virgin birth and so forth. A South African grouping called the New Reformation Network serves as the most extreme and controversial local example of this grouping.

Obviously criticism against the ECM cannot be excluded. According to Mark Sayers, ECM church leader in Australia and an avid blogger (his site can be found here), five mistakes are made by ECM thinkers (the original post can be found here):

• Emerging churches often fail in their definition of attraction. This means that they became innovative or renewing in favour of new ideas rather than getting in touch with their own context. This has the effect that they implement new ideas that worked in other churches because it is supposed to produce quick results, and they fail to really try and minister to the non-churched in their communities.
  
• Emerging churches often fail in their understanding of the incarnation of Christ. They try theological approaches that worked in other churches and forget the people in theiur church had different experiences and cultural background. Thus, congregations die as the leaders in those churches cannot adapt their ministry to present the message of Christ to different population groups that move into their communities or to subcultures that develop within their communities.
• Consumer culture often dictates the ministry approach of emerging churches. This means that ECM churches often use a market driven approach to ministry in stead of trying to stay as close to the gospel message as possible. the focus shifts to anything that attract large amounts of people - and often it means the invitation of superstar preachers or well-known Christians to come and push the congregation to a new ministry level.
  
• Church is only for successful believers. This mistake is a bit tricky, as Sayers tried to argue that ECM churches often become the healing place for hurting or burnt-out members of charismatic or evangelical churches. in a South African context the problem grows bigger, because of a strange sort of Christian syncretism that developed in our ecclesial landscape. One often finds South african believers happily quoting the teachings of Rob Bell alongside that of Joel Osteen or Joyce Meyers, for example.ECM churches in South Africa unknowingly can walk into the trap of confusing charismatic success theology and properity teaching with emerging missional theology. This leads to the misconception that the church has no place for broken believers, or spiritual seekers. The local popularity of charismatic speakers such as Angus Buchan and the proliferation of the view that a Christian should only believe hard enough and everything will come right for him/her shows the extent to which this confusion has permeated our church landscape. True ECM churches face the fact that the western church is filled with (to use Sayers' words low fuel-tank believers, and intentionally create a safe place for such people to belong.
  
• ECM churches too easily choose in favour of ministry to a specific subculture. This means renewal is understood as ministry geared towards a single generational grouping. This implies the adaptation of the worship style and gospel message to suit a specific group of members with the exclusion of the rest of the congregation. this results in large amounts of tension in congregations, as the essence of the church as an extended family is ignored.

Now that this is all said, one last question remains: Is the Emerging Church a stumbling block to the gospel, or is it the future of the church?

The refreshing turn-around in our current ecclesial landscape is specifically the openness to think new and experiment. in the overwhelming majority of ECM congregations the core message of the gospel is still being presented: Jesus Christ is the beginning, continuation and end of every believer's earthly life. from this starting point the table is set for new thinking and the prospecting of alternative ministry opportunities to minister a fast-changing culture with an ancient message. the time has therfore come for the church to make the paradigm leap into thinking innovatively about its ministry in a new life context.